Clip for suspending articles



March 21, 1950 os 2,501,519

CLIP FOR SUSPENDING ARTICLES Filed Sept 7, 1948 lnnentor Harry A. fiasey lg attorney Patented Mar. 21, 1950 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE CLIP FOR SUSPENDING ARTICLES Harry A. Hosey, Old Hickory, Tenn.

Application September '7, 1948, Serial No. 48,115

4 Claims. (01. 24150) My invention relates to a clip for fastening a material to a support and more particularly to a clip or pin for fastening a womans skirt to a coat hanger.

Various types of clips have been used for the purpose of suspending articles of fabric from supports. Such clips are in use particularly by drycleaners for supporting cleaned articles, espec'ially womens skirts, from coat hangers when they are to be returned to their customers. In general, such clips consists of V-shaped strips of metal having prongs near their ends extending inwardly therefrom. The clip is placed over a wire or rod, such as a metal coat hanger, and the fabric or cloth is inserted between its ends. The ends of the clip are then pressed together to bend the clip around the wire and to project the prongs into the fabric of the article to be supported. All such prior clips have the disadvantage that they retain some elasticity or springiness at their apexes after their ends have been pressed together, so that their ends tend to fly apart and pull the prongs out of the fabric. The result of this tendency of the ends of the clip to pull away from each other is that the ends themselves have no effect in supporting the fabric and if the prongs remain embedded in the fabric at all, they are so only to a very limited extent and frequently not sufficiently to be able to support the Weight of the garment, which tends to bend the prongs downwardly. Such a clip will hold a garment only if its ends are compressed together very tightly, so that its springiness at its apex is reduced to the point where it will not pull the prongs out of the fabric enough to keep them from supportin the garment. For this reason, such clips are not satisfactory in use. My invention provides a clip which is not subject to this diniculty and which is very satisfactory in use.

One object of my invention is to provide a clip or clasp, for supporting an article of fabric or other material from a rod or wire which has the resilience of the center angle of the clip compensated for by the resilience of one or more additional angles or corners.

Another object is to provide a clip which, when placed in position for suspending a garment from a coat hanger, is subject to internal stresses tending to compress the ends of the clip against opposite sides of the garment and thereby to assist in supporting the garment.

A further object of my invention is to provide a. clip having prongs which, when the sides of the clip are fully compressed together to support an article of cloth, become bent diagonally upward so as to support the article more securely and so as to resist more effectively the tendency of the weight of the article to bend the prongs.

Still other objects, features and advantages of this invention will'be apparent from the following description and from the accompanying drawings of a preferred embodiment, it being understood that the detailed description and drawings are merely illustrative of the invention which is defined in the claims.

In the drawings,

Figure 1 is a front elevation of a clip embodying my invention.

Figure 2 is a side elevation of the clip.

Figure 3 is a bottom or inverted plan view of the clip illustrated in Figure 1, showing the relative positions of the prongs or barbs.

Figure 4 is a perspective view of the same clip.

Figure 5 is a side elevation, illustrating one manner of using a clip embodyin my invention, showing a skirt in place under the wire of a coat hanger with a clip in intermediate position, or partly closed; and

Figure 6 is a side elevation similar to Figure 5, but showing the clip completely closed.

Like reference numerals refer to like parts throughout the several figures of the drawings.

The clip, clasp or pin embodying my invention, indicated generally by the numeral II), is preferably stamped from thin sheet metal, such as aluminum, and, as may be clearly seen in Figures 1 to 4, comprises a strip or band of such metal formed with an apex or center corner or angle i i and with at least one additional corner or shoulder, and preferably at least two such additional shoulders or angles 12 and H3. The sides of the clip between. these corners l2 and I3 and its ends it and i5 may be perforated, as at [6 and H, to form barbs or prongs I8 and I9 projecting inwardly from the sides of the clip. As may beclearly seen in Figure 3, the prongs or spurs l8 and it are preferably offset laterally from each other so that, when the sides of the clip are forced together, the spurs or points will not interfere with each other by passing through the same portion of the fabric being held, but will instead extend through slightly separated portions of the fabric and will thus hold the fabric more securely. The ends M and I5 of the clip are preferably rounded, as illustrated in Figures 1 and 4, to prevent them from scratching the fingers of the user orfrom tearing the fabric of the garments.

For convenience in manufacture and in handling, I prefer to construct the clips or pins in relatively long snakes or strips of a number of the clips joined together, such as by a thin band of unsevered metal. All of the clips in the snake are molded from a piece of sheet metal at the same time and, except for the bands of unsevered metal, the snake is cut into individual clips.

In Figures 5 and 6, the operation of putting a clip in place about the wire of a coat hanger and securing it to a garment or other article of fabric or cloth, such as the hem of a skirt, is illustrated. The proper portions of a coat hanger to which a skirt should be attached are the two upper, slanting wires, rather than the lower, horizontal wire. If the skirt is secured to the lower wire, its sides become bunched or gathered together in handling, while if its sides are secured to the upper, slanting wires, the pull of gravity always tends to hold the sides of the skirt apart, since the wires slant downwardly and outwardly. Accordingly, there is illustrated. the fastening of a clip ill about the upper wire or rod 2! or a coat hanger. A skirt or other garment or material 22 is held in position by one hand close up against the lower side of the upper wire 2i while the clip i9 is held between the forefinger 23 and thumb 2tof the other hand. The forefinger 23 is placed on one of the corners I2 while the thumb 2A is placed on the other corner l3 of the clip. The clip is positioned with its apex l I about the upper wire 2i and with its barbs or points 18 and i9 projecting inwardly toward the opposite sides of the skirt 22. The forefinger 23 and the thumb 24 are then pressed together, forcing the clip to bend at the apex it so that its barbs l8 and 19 come into contact with the opposite sides of the garment 22, as illustrated in Figure 8.

As the clip is compressed further, the barbs l8 and l 9 penetrate the garment 22 and the ends l4 and lb or" the clip come into contact with the opposite sides of the garment 22. The barbs i8 and 19 may pass through the garment, especially if it is relatively thin, and come into contact, at an angle as illustratedv in Figure 6, with the inner surfaces of the opposite sides of the clip. Further force on the sides of the clip then tends to cause the barbs to bend upwardly. At a certain point, the resistance to further movement together of the prongs l8 and I9 and of the ends i l and i5 becomes greater than the elastic limit of the clip at the shoulders or angles I2 and 13. At that point, as the forefinger 23 and thumb 2E continue to be pressed together and, at the same time, downwardly against the wire 2 I, the clip begins to bend at the angles I 2. and I3. As the clip is bent at the corners l2 and E3, the sides of the clip become substantially straightened out at those corners and accordingly lengthened. As the garment 22 and the clip Ill continue to be held in the same position relative to the upper wire 2!, the ends 14 and. [5 of the clip move downwardly relative to the garment 22 and the prongs or barbs l8 and I9, being held by the fabric of the garment, become bent further at their bases so that they slant diagonally upward from their bases to their points.

After the clip H] has been bent at its apex ii, the bent metal on the inside of the apex is in a state of compression while the metal on the outside of the apex is in tension. This combined tension on the outside and. compression on the inside of the apex H causes the clip to tend to open, as in the case. of an ordinary V-shaped clip. However, when the corners l2 and I3 are flattened, the inside metal of the corners is placed in a state of tension and the outside metal at those corners is placed in compression. The combined result of these forces at the corners l2 and it is to cause these corners to tend to close back up again and this result completely counteracts the tendency of the clip at its apex l l to open up and holds the ends it and lb of the clip firmly against the sides of the garment 22. It is this novel and useful characteristic of my invention which produces a clip that is eminently satisfactory in use.

It will be appreciated that various changes may be made in the embodiment disclosed herein without departing from the spirit of my invention. The clip may be made of steel, or of any ductile metal, or of any other suitable material, such as a plastic material. It need not be made in the form of a snake or a strip. Also, it may be made with one, two or any other suitable number of corners additional to the center corner or apex. Furthermore, the invention is not limited to the use of two barbs or prongs, but may, instead, have one, three, four or any other suitable number of barbs.

It should be clear from the foregoing description and from the accompanying drawings that there is provided by my invention a clip which holds garments or other articles to a coat hanger or other supporting member without danger of the clips spreading and thereby failing to support the garment. The resilience of the clip at its center angle or apex is compensated for by the resilience of the clip at its one or more additional corners. The resilience or springiness of the clip at these latter latter corners acts in a direction opposing the resilience or springiness of the clip at its center angle or apex.

An additional result of this arrangement whereby the resilience of the additional corners opposes the resilience of the center angle or apex is that the ends of the clip are thereby held firmly against the sides of the garment or other article being supported. Thus, the ends of the clip assist the barbs or prongs in sustaining the weight of the garment or other article.

A further result of this invention is that the inwardly projecting barbs or prongs become bent diagonally upward, as has been described, within the material of the garment or other article, and, as a result, there is much less likelihood that the weight of the garment will bend them downward. The barbs are at such an angle that the weight of the garment exerts practically no bending moment. Instead, the weight of the garment acts nearly parallel to the length of the prong, since a part of the Weight tends to spring the clip open against the resiliency of the additional corners, the latter tending to maintain the barbs and the ends of the clip firmly against the garment. As a result, the weight of the garment or other article being supported acts substantially in such a direction as to tend to compress the metal of the prong.

I claim:

1. A clip for suspending an article from a support comprising a strip of resilient but permanently deformable material bent in substantially a U-shape to form at least two corners and having inwardly projecting barbs for piercing said article.

2. A substantially U-shaped clip for suspending an article from a support comprising a strip of elastic but permanently deformable material bent to form at least two corners and having in- P wardly projecting barbs. for piercing said article, said clip being adapted'to be bent about said support at one of said corners and being adapted to be substantially straightened at its other corners to counter-balance its jelasticity' at the corner bent about said support.

3. A clip for suspending an article from a support comprising a strip oi. resilient but permanently deformable metal bent in substantially a U-shape to form a plurality of angles and having prongs projecting inwardly near its ends for engaging said article.

4. A clip for suspending an article from a support comprising a strip of resilient but permanently deformable metal-bent in substantially a 15 U-shape to form a plurality of angles and having prongs projecting inwardly near its ends for 5 the angle bent about said support.

HARRY A. HOSEY.

REFERENCES CITED I The following" references are of record in the file of this patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name Date 1,454,783 Ye'tter May 8, 1923 1,675,286 Van Valkenburg June 26, 1928 2,138,847 Felix Dec. 6, 1938 

